pouët.net

imho doom has a very good point about how the european social welfare systems are outsourcing your conscience. i wish there was a way in which there could be social support for the unlucky to climb out of their valleys while still having the great charity-giving culture of the US. i mean, half of the US's public services run on charities. isn't that great?

preacher is seconded many times and for a reason.

doom has some good points. but what's the difference between having a social welfare system paid for by taxes or one paid for by charity? if it gets done, it gets done. people specialise, it's called civilisation.

skrebbel: taking usa as an example.. ever seen their healthcare system? they might need some more charity dollars. and why is amtrak so expensive, and why does it cost $ 10k a year to send a kid to college?

european taxes aren't that bad. don't outsource your wits and optimise. from a corporate viewpoint i don't know. hiring employees is a lot of rules and regulations, for sure. maybe in that sense i agree with some libertarian ideas, but that's about it.

earx, thanks for not reading my post; i never said the US social welfare system is OK, it sucks big time. as far as i know, it's live in a trailer, get cancer, and you die. however, even many of the people in the US who live in trailers donate 10 bucks a month to the primary school they once attended. that's a piece of spirit that's nowhere to be seen anywhere in europe i've been. after all, we've paid taxes enough, no? let the government fix it!

Not really, no. I don't think there's an example anywhere you could just copy from, and it's difficult to isolate one element in the mix and analyse it to see how well a population are coping with the freedoms they have. For instance within the UK tighter drinking laws seem (on the surface at least) to have had a positive effect on the drinking problem, but on the other hand Denmark has a much more liberal alcohol policy altogether yet less of a drinking problem.

So no easy answers I guess, except if you have strong principles, then sometimes you can find an easy answer. Like the death penalty: you can debate endlessly how effective it is in deterring crime and all that, but if you're against taking human life as a matter of principle, then all those other discussions are moot.



The difference would be choice. What works out better in the short term for most people, I don't know, but there's a world of difference between a centralised system run by a power elite (whether elected or not), and a bunch of separate charities that people voluntarily support according to how they feel their money is best spent. One of the major things to me is that the latter encourages (in fact requires) people to take an active interest in the world around them.

And we all have it in us to be considerate and helpful, I mean, show me the guy who wouldn't hold a door open for someone in a wheelchair, or give up his seat on the bus to an old lady. But if we don't cultivate those feelings of empathy and social responsibility, then to the extent democracy still works that growing indifference will be reflected more and more in government policy with every election.



Well they don't really have one in the same sense as Europe does, so it's a bit hard to compare.



Train travel is usually not a cheap alternative to anything. But it's $84 for an advance ticket from New York to Chicago, for example, without any discounts. I don't think that's outrageous for an 800-mile journey (taking 20 hours), at least not if you compare to European rail services. The same ticket for today would be $165.

In the UK, the 3 hours from London to Leeds would cost you £86 today ($140). Denmark is slightly cheaper, with a 4.5-hour trip from Aalborg to Copenhagen costing DKK 364 ($70), but unlike the UK and the US, the DK doesn't give you massive savings for advance bookings.

So I'd hesitate (a lot) to say Amtrak is expensive.



Because running a university is expensive. It's not that it's cheaper in Europe, it's just paid for differently.

Props to doom for not resorting to name calling like so many others in the thread.

I don't agree with the slight whine about taxes; mostly because I think taxation isn't the most important issue up and about and yet it's in the main artillery of most libertarians and liberals (in a non-US sense of the word). Given the state of the system I'd much rather pay taxes to the government as it is than have to painstakingly choose every single social security provider myself from a cartel of corrupt mega corporations. Sure, I'm still in the hands of incompetent egomaniacs, but at least there's a figment of transparency.

What I would like to see is more or less a complete decentralization of the nations into a network of independent city states, governed by their citizens on a level much closer to the grassroots than current governments, not to mention the EU parliament. Don't know if it'd work, but with a reformist approach I believe it'd be self evident how far the idea can be taken.

The interesting thing about all of these liberalistic or libertarian systems is that they mostly allow for economical freedom - and the more economical freedom, the more freedom for the companies which are already dominating to secure their market position. The ideal that one man is able to make something great and earn his own money from his own work is quite romantic (since this one man will be marketed out by any big company feeling threatened by his work), and so a society with some sort of general rules is needed in order to allow the kind of cooperative projects that is needed for the likes of advanced technology. Now the question is: Do we want those rules to be made by the board of some company which is selected solely to secure profits, or do we want the (admittedly only marginally better) solution where a bunch of professional bureaucrats/politicians are chosen to govern. I know, what I prefer. Though I despise bureaucracy (more on that later maybe).

But basically, my philosophy is not based on economy and money - generally, economic currencies can gain and loose value. There is, however, another currency, which cannot be put in the bank, and which is, all in all, worth far more. We only have one life, which lasts a limited, yet unknown, amount of time, and in order to spend it as we want, "free" education and healthcare is some of the things we need. As well as working infrastructure and a whole lot of other things.

And Doom, you should be aware that the only drinking problem that exists is lack of alcohol to drink - a problem, which can (and should) usually be solved. Symbolic laws which doesn't really do anything except push people in the "right" direction is a disease of the marketing age where it's all about the commercials and the design and not about the product itself (the product in this case being the lawtext).

And Skrebbel - the kind of charities you find in America aren't nearly as charitable as paying money to the government which means everybody in the whole country, compared to keeping up your nostalgic memories and paying something to your old school. Charity in America seems to have an awful lot to do with showing that you can afford it.

America and the whole system (social/legal) is a wonderful example of, how the combination of a general lack of a social system and great differences the poorest and the richest leads to a society where peoples conscience often seems much overshadowed by either need (among the poor), greed(everyone with more ambition than conscience) and general lack of conscience among those who need it most - the ones with the most resources. I'd much rather outsource some conscience to the state than actively support a system which in the end results in situation where conscience is often overruled for the benefit of cash.

Hear, hear. I would like to see it also.

How can my MP represent me? I've never met him (or her, I must confess I have no idea whom my MP is), he lives in the nations capital for more than half the year. He does not have ANY idea what it's like to live where I live. Even when he IS in his constituency, he lives in a cosy five-bedroom house with a maid, and I live in a single bedroom flat in an inner-city housing project. He's in no more of a position to speak for me, than I for him.

How the fuck can suck a person be representative of ME!? Oh, I'm supposed to write him a letter you say. "Yeah, that'll work" (in a venemously sarcastic tone). He would do his best to ignore me even if I and the several thousand people whom also live in my building were to sit on the steps of parliament attempting to bar his entrance.

oops, accidentally hit submit instead of preview...

In summary, a person from my building probably could represent me and my interests pretty well. But some fucktard in Canberra is only representing himself, his friends and their interests.

Oh, would big coroprations really be free to fuck us all over without Governmental regulation. Or would lack of Governmental regulation, remove the system which big coroprations use in order to fuck us all over?

Of course no Government would mean no money, not as we know it. Of course assets would still be real, but money's not quite the same as gold bars.